Thanks to tonydead for putting this all together:
First over the air channels (OTA). You can get, and maybe already do, all the local channels OTA in high definition. You’ll also get more than you suspect if you haven’t tuned in to OTA for many years, most places have at least 40 channels available. All you need for this is a HD antenna and a 21st Century tv. Very few flat panel tvs were ever made without an HD receiver so the only tvs you would have to buy a HD receiver box for are the old CRT tvs if you still have any. To help you find out how strong your OTA signals are and where to point your antenna go here:
Link.. the strength of the signal will help you determine what type of antenna you need. Follow the directions at the bottom of the website page after you've found the signals for your address.
Recommended Roof mount models: Vinegard
Recommended Indoor models: Mohu Leaf
When you have everything hooked up, connect the antenna coax to the coax input to each tv and scan for channels. A couple of notes about coax; the longer the runs the more your signal degrades and you’ll also lose another 9db every time you go through a splitter. High quality cable and connectors count too. If you use a roof antenna where cable runs are long and have more than one split look into amplifiers for the signal.
Everything Else:
For everything else you’ll need a secondary devise to stream the streaming services that are vailable. Let’s take a look at your choices:
Home Theatre Personal Computer (HTPC). This is the best device because it can do everything, however, it will cost more and takes some tech savvy to set up. The advantages are Personal Video Recording (PVR) OTA, movie and show streaming over your home network and will include a OTA channel card. (Most people overlook this last advantage. If you use OTA with any of the tv devices like Roku or Firestick they do NOT come with a coax-in so you end up having to switch inputs to switch back and forth from OTA and your other channels/services.) You can build your own HTPC, convert an old computer you might have on hand or find one of the many that are commercially available.
Roku 3, this is probably your best bet for a plug and play devise.
Firestick. These are Android and they are left open for 3rd party development and applications. You can “sideload” any .APK application, even those not found in the google store.
TV Boxes. There are many boxes that offer a nice in between HTPC and Roku/Firestick including Amazon’s Fire TV and Roku 4 both available supporting 4000K. These add some additional features like limited internet access and games. Generally speaking the sticks are wifi only and sometimes not as responsive as the Roku/Fire boxes.
XBOX/Playstation. If you’re a gamer most of the popular services are available to stream through your gaming console.
Streaming devices update: Roku 4 and new versions of Fire TV available.
Streaming Services:
Playstation’s Vue. For $30/month (unless you are in one of the role out cities where you get local channels, but have to pay $10 more a month) you get around 60 channels including espn, espn 2, amc, Discovery, several news channels, etc. Plus you can buy higher tier packages with more channels up to around 100 channels. Vue, though, unlike Sling TV below is limited to playstaion and amazon fire devices currently.
Sling TV. For $20/month you get 23 channels and counting including espn, espn2, amc, food network, A&E, history channel, TNT, HGTC, etc. Plus you can buy packages for an additional $5/month whose categories include news, kids, or movies to add more channels. You can also get a firestick for free or a Roku for cheap with a prepaid 3 months.
Netflix. Netflix huge database of available movies still towers over anything Hulu or Amazon Prime offers. Surprisingly though where Hulu and Amazon once might have an edge for tv shows Netflix is excelling with its Netflix Original Series that are prime time quality shows available only on Netflix.
Hulu and Amazon Prime. For past shows and movies these two services are about equal. However, if you order more than once or twice a year from Amazon the $99/year for free shipping includes a subscription to Amazon prime and makes this a choice a no-brainer.
Hulu Update: Hulu has launched several of its own Original Series tv shows. They also claim to have more of a movie library than Netflix now.
HBONOW. Hbo became the first major cable subscriber channel to offer streaming services without a cable provider subscription. It is available through SlingTV for $15/mo or you can get it stand alone for the same price. Showtime and others have quickly followed suit.
Streaming Services Update: Directv and Youtube television streaming services coming soon.
Plex:
Plex is a server for your computer that if you have anything recorded; tv shows, movies, music, home movies you can stream them to your Roku, firestick, phone or ipad through the Plex app.
FreeTV:
Maybe you’ve heard about something called Kodi. Kodi is open source home theatre software that you can install on computing devices like a HTPC. Being a home theatre software it allows for installation of third party streaming apps like the streaming services noted above. But, there is something more. There are other addons out there that find an abundance of streams that are available on the internet. With the right combination of addons the availability of streams for previously recorded tv shows and movies is unlimited. There are also addons for live tv and sports, however, the live tv streams quality and reliability seem to vary more than the previously recorded content so your mileage may vary.
Currently the most popular and reliable addon for tv shows and movies is Exodus. Follow this guide to install Kodi and then Exodus onto a firestick.
1- Download the ARM version for Android
here.
2- Sideload it onto your firestick by following
this.
3- Install the fusion installer by following
this.
4- Then
addon installer.
5- Currently the best addon is
Exodus.
Kodi Update: There is an easier way to install and update Kodi without having to sideload. Follow the first half of this video:
Link
There are also custom builds available that make customizing Kodi and installing all the addons you’d ever want in one single installation. There is one on the second half of the video above and another popular one showed in this video:
Link
Hardware Update:
Recommend minimum wifi router of 802.11n specifications for wireless streaming.
Recommend cable modem of DOCSIS 3.0 or later mainly because most internet service providers don’t support anything less.